Judy Norsigian

Judith L. Norsigian was born in 1948 to an educated middle class Armenian family in Brighton, Massachusetts at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. She grew up on Charles River Road in Watertown, Massachusetts and lived there up to her college years. She is the second of five children. Norsigian enjoyed a happy childhood. She played the cello, was active in sports, and had a great neighborhood life.[6][7]

Both of Norsigian’s parents were denied the opportunity to pursue their dream education. Her father was admitted to MIT with a scholarship, but due to his father passing away he had to work and go to night classes at Northeastern University. Norsigian’s mother grew up in an Armenian family where her  father did not want women to speak. She wasn't able to fulfill her wish of going to medical school, but became a lab technician at Massachusetts General Hospital. Thus Norsigian’s parents encouraged her education and supported her interests.[7]

Norsigian grew up with a general lack of consciousness about the women’s movement. However her family empowered her as a young woman and greatly influenced her activism.[7]

Norsigian’s father wanted her to be independent and not rely on a man. When she was 12, her father gave her a copy of Marriage and Morals by Bertrand Russell. In the first few chapters she read that people shouldn’t get married until they live together first and know they are well suited for each other. He also encouraged her to go to college and have a career so that she can support herself. They also shared a love of mathematics. She was very close with her father, which helped her to develop a strong sense of self.[7]

Norsigian’s mother instilled in her a sense of civic participation and agency. She was a member of the League of Women Voters. And when she was working on presidential campaigns, she would take Norsigian with her, which cultivated civic-mindedness at an early age. Her mother also arranged her music lessons and skated with her and the neighborhood kids on the Charles River.[7]

Norsigian learned a lot about the Armenian Genocide from a young age, which developed a strong social justice consciousness. Her father escaped the Armenian genocide at the age of five and later moved to the US. Her great aunt would tell horrid stories of her forced march across the Syrian desert. Young Norsigian felt the great pain transmitted across generations. Seeing and feeling the post-genocide suffering, she was inspired to become an activist.[6]

Norsigian first encountered racism in the eighth grade when a black girl joined her class. There were only around four black families in the neighborhood at the time. The girls encouraged their new black friend to join them in Rainbow Girls, a Masonic Order group, but they were horrified to find that black people were not allowed in Rainbow Girls nor any other Masonic Order group. Norsigian and her friends wrote a letter to the local leaders complaining about this discrimination. Their request was denied. This made the young activists doubt the intelligence and integrity of the leaders. Thus, most of them quit Rainbow Girls in protest. Norsigian’s father supported their efforts and alluded to a greater problem of racism in America. This was the first time she noticed discrimination and exclusion. This was also the first time she felt the divide in friendships as some of her friends did not quit the group.[7]

Norsigian had to confront racism in her own family as well. On two distinct occasions her aunt (who lived with them) made racist comments regarding the black male friends of Norsigian and her sister. Their father told their aunt to mind her own business. However, such examples of racism and discrimination would increase over time in Norsigian’s life.[7]

Norsigian holds a BA in Social Relations from Harvard University 1966-1970.[6] While studying at Harvard, she was exposed to the peace movement against the Vietnam war happening on campus. She joined the Harvard strike. These events forced her  to think more deeply about the civil rights movement, particularly anti-war social justice.[7]

After graduating from Harvard in 1970 Norsigian moved to a farm in upstate New York, where she lived communally. The communal living experience exposed her to feminism and she started to notice gender roles and stereotypes. On the farm commune they were consciously breaking down gender roles. Women were repairing cars and operating the farming equipment. While the men were doing child care and baking bread. Norsigian learned auto mechanics and later taught it for women at the local YWCA in Cambridge.[7]

In the summer of 1971 Norsigian found out about the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective through a friend. She became the youngest member of the group and was fascinated by all the women she met. Around the 1970s no information about female bodies, sexuality and health were publicly available. Therefore, sharing, writing down and reading about women’s experiences was an awakening for everyone involved, including Norsigian.[7]

Norsigian made her first contribution to Our Bodies, Ourselves (OBOS) in September 1971 by adding “The Food We Eat” chapter. She wrote about her organic farming in her rural commune and its connection to women’s physical well-being and strength through healthy nutrition.[6][7]

Norsigian co-created and co-directed a teen center in Cambridge.[6] The teen center was funded by the U.S. LEAA’s program focused on “juvenile delinquency prevention.” She introduced rap sessions focused on sexuality education for teenagers. This work drew on her knowledge gained from the OBOS group.[7]

In the early 1970s, Norsigian was one of the few people who worked part-time for OBOS. Gradually she became more involved as a paid part time staff member at OBOS. During the latter part of the 1970s she became a full-time staff member. She was mainly involved in programmatic issues.[7]

Over time Norsigian’s interests within OBOS grew to include violence against women, reproductive health, reproductive justice, and other issues. She found these issues to be essential to discuss even though she did not experience most of them herself. For example, Norsigian had the privilege of getting contraceptive diaphragms from an obstetrician gynecologist professor from Harvard Square during her university years. Others did not have this resource, as contraceptives were illegal for unwed women at this time in US history.[7]

In 2001 Norsigian assumed the position of the first executive director of the OBOS. The organization was relatively small at this point and was operating from a free space donated by the Boston University School of Public Health. This greatly helped the organization get back on its feet. She continued to lead OBOS for 13 years.[7]

At the end of 2014 Norsigian passed her position of OBOS executive director to Julie Childers. She found it important to give the opportunity to a younger leadership. At this time her activism shifted to climate change as she started to volunteer more in that sphere.[7]

In 2016 due to insufficient funding OBOS morphed back to a volunteer driven model. In 2018 Norsigian became the board chair, a position she holds to this day. She hopes to pass the chair role to another board member soon.[7]